


Absence Makes the Heart

by galacticproportions



Series: Veterans' Affairs [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Edging, Established Relationship, Jessika Pava can't spell, Light D/s I guess, Lots of guessing here, M/M, Mentions of attempted suicide, Oral Sex, Poe doesn't believe in paragraphs, Post-War, Semi-Epistolary, Space sexting, Veterans' affairs, is what that's called I guess, mentions of suicidal ideation, thanks internet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 16:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7180760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticproportions/pseuds/galacticproportions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end of the war, Finn knows what he wants to do. Poe doesn't. While they're apart, they write to each other; what will happen when they're back together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence Makes the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts), [cicak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicak/gifts).



> This is set between "Finishing Each Other's Sentences" and "Length of Days," much closer to the former in time. 
> 
> I have decided, because it's convenient for me, that remote communications in the galaxy far far away work something like I think a telegraph relay works, not that I'm all that sure about that either.
> 
> All honor to wise pornographers and students of human nature gloss and cicak; without your good influences, I would never have written this story. 
> 
> The title is from some damn thing but I can't remember what; if anyone knows, please leave it in the comments and I'll amend this!

POE DAMERON TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: HIGH

STATUS: OPEN

 

_The code word is TIEFIGHTER._

 

Finn frowns and tries to scroll down on the commscreen to see the rest of the message. There isn't any. Maybe it got interrupted? Communications to the small mountain city are uneven, a combination of the gas flares on this world's sun and an elderly receiver array that, in the aftermath of the war and the New Galactic Accords, is not exactly anyone's priority.

 

Finn has been here for barely two of this planet's months. Along with a few other early First Order defectors, a sprinkling of ex-Resistance people and the city's own government, he's been supervising the efforts to acclimate ex-stormtroopers to civilian life. The town is one of twenty on six different worlds, all chosen carefully: they had to have a high concentration of humans because stormtroopers' reactions to other sentients tended to be hard on the sentients in question; they had to be able to benefit from an influx of able bodies and equipped to respond to an influx of struggling minds. Some of them had lost whole generations to the First Order, and were torn between hoping to recover some of their lost children and wanting to exact a price from the people who had stolen them.

 

This city, Roel, isn't one of these, and Finn is grateful. At the moment, knowing it would probably have pushed him over the edge.

 

Roel's leaders were glad to get the former FN-2187 as their liaison, bragged about it in sector-wide media even, but they're also savagely happy to bring him every little problem. Of the 50 stormtroopers living and working in the town, about nine are doing reasonably okay with no record of suicide attempts, punch-ups, substance abuse or persistent dissociative episodes. He's already insisted that two of the mindhealers go offworld for an extended break, and one of them is a refugee from the Hosnian system with nowhere in particular left to go.

 

And he's lonely as _fuck._

 

Poe isn't here because there's nothing for him to do here. After the Accords, when the Resistance proper demobilized, he flew home to Yavin 4. That's where he is now, visiting his father and figuring out what to do next. Finn was a little jealous, at first, that Poe had a home to go to. But although Poe knows what's behind him, he doesn't know what's ahead of him. They agreed that coming to stay with Finn would only put off figuring it out; that for Poe, being in a place where Finn had specific work to do and Poe didn't would probably be awful; that Finn would be so busy that they wouldn't even have time to be together, anyway, really.

 

(They also agreed that it was fine to fuck other people, if they wanted to. Finn honestly wishes he had the time, though if he did have it that might not be what he'd use it for. When he does have a minute to himself, usually last thing at night, he thinks back to the feeling of Poe's mouth on his dick, or Poe's dazed and desperate eyes as Finn looks down at him, and comes hard and quickly and sinks into sleep.)

 

Poe's written to him twice already about people he wants Finn to meet one day, not just Kes but a loose network of abuelas and tíos and what Poe calls play-cousins, a distinction Finn isn't sure he understands; about BB-8's shouting matches with a manure-spreader droid; about the General's latest speech calling for representatives to the newly formed Parliament of the League of Worlds, which Finn couldn't hear live because he was sitting with an ex-trooper who'd freaked out on the way downtown. Both messages ended the same way: _I miss you. I love you._

 

But not this one. Finn frowns at it again, partly because he won't be able to frown at the people he's about to meet with, and descends to the room he's meeting them in. In Roel they tend to build out from the mountain caves, with windows on one side only, and the town headwoman and her two aides have already chosen the seats that will leave their faces in shadow.

 

He sits facing them and nods in a way he hopes is reassuring to Spoons, an ex-trooper who has proven their quick wit and even temper time and time again, and who Finn's hoping will take over for him when he leaves at the end of this year. They sit with their datapad poised and flick two stormtrooper handsigns at him below the level of the table, one that means, more or less, _power struggle_ and one that means _distraction._

 

They've barely gotten past the preliminaries when the comm makes its alert sound. "Excuse me," Finn says, happy to have a pause to collect his thoughts. It's from Poe--maybe the rest of the message that got cut off?--and shit, the priority's listed as high on this one, too. But it's gibberish--what could have--

 

\--Oh. Finn brings up the decryption screen and types _TIEFIGHTER_ into the cipher blank.

 

And is immediately more glad than he's ever been in his life that his skin doesn't show blushes. He returns to the table saying, "Just a personal message, nothing urgent," and feels a new appreciation for the fact that tables, in addition to their many other fine qualities, hide your lap from the people sitting across from you. Spoons handsigns _bad?_

 

 _All well,_ Finn signs, and collects himself: "Sorry for the interruption. You were saying that the guilds have been complaining to you about having to train ex-trooper workers?"

 

As soon as he reasonably can--this meeting was never going to end in a resolution anyway, the people he needs to talk to are the guild forewomen--he slips off to his room and opens the message again on the comm bank there.

 

POE DAMERON TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: HIGH

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_This is just to tell you how much I wish I was sucking your cock right now. Last night I lay up in my old room and touched myself, thinking about you and that concentrated look you get when you tell me to suck it, how beautiful your cock is and how soft your skin is and how good you taste when I get you in my mouth. Those little sounds you make when I tease you with my tongue and how they're different than the ones you make when I take you all the way in. I tried sucking on the fingers of my other hand to kind of get the idea, and I would've pulled my hair like you do but I didn't have enough hands. I came with my hand stuffed in my mouth, which is probably just as well since my dad sleeps right on the other side of the wall. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it--I used to hear him and my mom fucking all the time. It embarrassed me then, but now I'm glad they got as much out of their time as they could. When I see you we'll have some serious catching up to do. In the meantime, write back to me and tell me what you wish we were doing. Tell me other things too, of course, whatever's going on. Use YAVINFOUR for the cipher and send me the one you want me to use when I write back. I miss you. I love you._

 

Finn reads the message three times, and by the third time he's so turned on that the letters are actually starting to blur. He flings himself back on the bed, undoes his pants, and strokes himself faster and faster, playing Poe's words back and picturing what he described. Spits on his hand to get it wet, circles the head with a fingertip and imagines Poe's tongue. A few more and he's there, convulsing and shooting hard across the worn sheets.

 

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_I'm not sure how good I'll be at this, but I'll do my best. What I wish we were doing right now is lying on my bed here, you with your shirt open, like we've already been kissing for a long time and we can't stand it anymore, we need more, and you look so pretty spread out for me. Then I think what I'd do is fuck you with my fingers (I guess you took your pants off somewhere in there), feel for that spot on the inside that makes you moan and roll your eyes. Maybe you could touch your cock too, and I'd just look at you and watch you come all over yourself for me. Basically I just want to see your face._

_Some of the ex-troopers here are doing not too bad, some are doing pretty bad. It's day by day. In some ways it's easier for them than it was for me because they have each other, and nobody's stopping them from treating each other like they matter. But then in some ways it's harder because they didn't choose to leave like I did. Over and over this comes up when I check in with them. It's like even if they'd heard of me, or even toward the end when it was pretty clear the First Order wasn't going to survive as a military power, it didn't occur to them that they might live any other life. Which makes sense, that's what the Order was trying for and they were pretty good at it, they acted like it would never end and maybe they even believed that. But it did end, so here we are. At the beginning of something else, I guess._

_Now I'm rambling and this is getting long. Do me a favor and don't send messages high priority unless it really is something that has to come through right away. The comm array here sucks shit and every time someone sends something high priority, it pushes other things to the back and it can take hours sometimes, which is a problem if it's about a shipment of medicine or something else important._

_Use ASTROMECH for the code next time. I miss you. I love you._

Even when everything's going relatively well, it's exhausting to be with a bunch of people living wholly in their own minds for the first time. The flinches, the withdrawals, the defensive aggressions; the differences in what an obligation is, or what a consequence is; the tentative overtures toward trust that have to be handled with alert patience. It makes Finn realize how _much_ Poe and the other people he'd worked closely with must have done at the beginning, how they hid the labor of it from him so he wouldn't feel like a burden. The least he can do is pass that on.

 

But it's also different in peacetime. In the Resistance, they had their roughly common cause and the exigencies of survival to help them cut corners, communicate efficiently, act in unison; they had a stake in keeping each other alive. The First Order had its own imposed dogmas and unities, while simultaneously insisting that any individual stormtrooper didn't matter much. Take away the former and leave the latter, and you've got a recipe for people with no _reason_ to take care of themselves or each other. Make their next lesson the everyone-for-himself attitude of a mercantile town and you're bound to get at least a few people drunk on their first taste of selfishness, and a few more almost eager to buy into it because falling in with someone else's will is something they understand.

 

POE DAMERON TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

 _You did that just right. Better than right. So well that I did in fact come all over myself, for you, after reading your message. I can see I'm going to have to step up my game. Before I do that, though, I want to make sure I say that this might be the last one for a few standard weeks. Pava landed a gig flying supplies through a bad asteroid field and asked me if I want to come on, and it sounds like just what I need for right now, but it's in Outer Fucksticks and we don't know exactly how long it'll take. If we get to spend any time planetside when we're unloading I'll try to comm you from there._ _Back to the important stuff. I don't think I spent nearly enough time eating your ass when we were in the same place and I don't want to make that mistake again. So when I see you, you better plan to lay out on your front and get comfortable. I'll probably just stare at your ass for a minute because a man only gets to see so many perfect things in his lifetime. Then I'll spread your cheeks with my hands and get my face in there, start by just licking you slowly, flicking you with my tongue. You'll want more (I know you) but you won't be able to do anything about it, maybe I'll tell you to keep your hands on the headboard--does your bed there have a headboard?--haven't worked out the details yet, but the important part is that I'll do it just a little longer than you can stand it, just smelling and tasting you and maybe licking your balls from the back a little bit too. Finally though I'll work my tongue inside your hole and really go to town, holding your hips so you can't even fuck back against me. Eventually I'll probably turn you over and suck you off but not for like, half an hour. I'm very serious about this and I look forward to hearing the swears you come up with when my tongue's inside you, fucking you and licking you out. Next code is HOTSHOT, but let me be the one to use it, because I don't know exactly where to tell you to send your next message or when, so you have plenty of time to gather your thoughts on these VERY IMPORTANT subjects. I'll write again as soon as I can. I miss you. I love you._

 

POE DAMERON TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_Asteroid run was no problem. Great to be flying again, and with Pava, even in a souped-up shuttle with not nearly enough maneuverability. Maybe especially that, even though BB-8's mad at me and says if we do a run like that again they're not coming unless we fly something that gives us more than a 66.23% chance of survival. I personally think two out of three ain't bad, better odds than I'm used to, but I know you'd be pissed if I went down, so I'll listen to BB-8. I can't tell you any more about my plans for you at the moment because Pava's standing here glaring at me to hurry up so she can comm her Ah Ma and tell her when to expect us. You can send your next message to Alchel on Dandoran, that's Pava's family's town, coordinates 8665 by 54 by 170. I'll be there for at least a standard month with my ear to the ground for the General--I guess she's not the General now, but that's how I always think of her. Pava's starting to call me names so I'll end this. Use RUNNINGREPAIRS for the next cipher. I miss you. I love you._

Ear to the ground: Finn rereads that sentence. What ground? Are there First Order resurgences? Something new and sinister that will rupture the Accords before they solidify into practice? He has to think about the big picture, because it affects what happens here, but it's hard to think about the big picture, because the urgencies of what happens here are constantly recurrent and shifting. Another person tried to die just yesterday, saying when he was conscious again that just eating and working and talking to people didn't seem like enough of a _reason_. And a crate of fruit that came up to the kitchens from the river valley turned out to have bugs in it, so now the entire greenhouse complex has bugs, and they have to figure out how to get rid of the bugs before they devour everything in the greenhouses or, stars forbid, spread to the fields.

 

But there are good moments too. Because Roel wasn't a kidnap town and because the canneries kept them going financially through the war, there are kids here, and a few of the ex-troopers are working in creches and schools--Finn had anticipated a lot of pushback about that, but the only thing the teachers' guild asked is that anyone so placed identified as female. About four months in, Dr. Atani from the medical staff asks Finn for a meeting: "Tenten and Xiomara both came to me to talk about going off their contraceptives. I wanted to check with you first."

 

"I don't think I have anything to say about it," Finn says slowly. "I mean I don't think it's for me to say."

 

"You really think it's a good idea? Xiomara especially--she still dissociates when she's under stress. Babies are stressful, kids are stressful, and once they're born, it's not like you can give them back."

 

"I don't know if it's a good idea. But we're people." He always says _we_ when he's talking about ex-troopers, to remind the person he's talking to who _they're_ talking to. "One of the things people do is have kids. And other thing people do is have bad ideas, and they live with them, and the people around them help them. You can suggest that they talk to the mindhealers about it, actually I recommend that. Ask Xiomara what she'll do or what she wants other people to do if she goes out of time--I think that's what she calls it--after the baby's born, help her make a plan."

 

Dr. Atani nods slowly. "I'll talk to the mindhealers and the crechekeepers about some kind of group or rotating care structure, too," he says. "Roel already has those round-the-clock creches, so that idea's not going to shock anybody. When my daughter was born, the one thing that kept me from killing myself and her, and that's not an exaggeration, was that my partners and our aunties and our friends were all on the case, and they expected us to call on them."

 

Finn has never seen Dr. Atani's daughter, or heard him speak of her or of his partners. He doesn't ask where any of them are now. The next time he sees Xiomara, just in passing, her normally trooper-still face is touched with a kind of shy wonderment. It's too soon for her to know she's pregnant, so what he's seeing must just be the feeling of possibility.

 

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_Here's a thought: after you do everything you said in your last message but one, which sounds great, it seems like fucking me would be the next logical step. I'd be so open for you and so ready. I know I don't always want it but I want it so much right now, to feel you over me and inside me. I slicked up my fingers and put them up my ass while I jacked off last night. I said your name._

_Then this morning I had to sit down with Lefty and Ottilie and their work liaison to talk about documenting and reporting harassment on the job, which is something that it's unsurprisingly difficult for ex-troopers to understand, and this afternoon I have a budget meeting, if you can believe it._

_How's Dandoran? What's Jess's Ah Ma like? If you can't tell me any more about what you're doing for General Organa I'll understand, but I do want to know. I want to know more about what you're feeling and thinking too. I mean, hearing what you want to do to me is great, send me as much of that as you want because I want it too. But I took it for granted when we were together, all the chances I had to just kind of gather what was going on with you, by watching you and listening to you. These words are so much better than nothing but I hate that they're all we have right now. Do you still think you'll try to visit next month? I want you so much. I miss you. I love you. Use BLACKONE for the code next time, I guess._

_I wanted to ask: have you ever thought about having kids?_

There are a few ex-troopers with what seems to Finn like more than a background level of Force-sensitivity. Some of them it makes extra-twitchy and vulnerable; a couple of them refuse to even consider the possibility. He isn't confident enough in his own abilities to assess what training they need and provide it himself (also, with what time and energy?) but he knows someone who is.

 

Rey brings the Falcon down on the compound's roofdeck, grinning all over her face when she steps out, so that he smiles back. How long has it been since he smiled because he was _happy,_ not just to reassure or placate someone? They hold each other tightly, and he's missed this too, the warmth and liveliness and particularity of someone he loves. "Are you well?" she asks, and he can feel her Force-awareness running over him, like a body-scan if a body-scan loved him and was worried about him. "Finn, you're _exhausted,_ you can't have been sleeping."

 

"I'm okay," he assures her. "I asked everyone to gather at six bells, so we have a little time. Tell me what you've been doing, how things are at the Temple. You want something to eat?"

 

"What kind of question is that?" They laugh, but he hasn't missed the thinner, sharper self peering out of her slightly rounder, more gentled face when he mentions food. Some things you don't get over. They eat bean-and-vegetable stew from the kitchens while she tells him about the trainees, their skills and their fears and their eagerness. "The only thing is, they all want to hear the story," she says, and her fingers brush the scarred side of her face. "And they already know it, they come in knowing it, but they want to hear it _because_ they know it. Because there's an enemy in it, and that makes things easy. To think about, I mean. Not easy to do. But they don't know that."

 

She's perfect with Notta and Lowball and Sixty and Margali, explaining who she is and what she does, opening her mind to them at a surface level so they can feel and taste what might be possible, even floating a chair for them so that Notta, barely cadet-age when the war ended, sits wide-eyed and worshipful. By the end of it, three of them have agreed to go back to the Temple with her and Sixty has agreed to meet with her once more to learn some exercises he can do on his own. Rey's always been poised, but these days her poise seems to float within a nimbus of serenity that reaches out to soothe Finn's own ragged edges. "There are a couple more?" she asks. "I can feel them."

 

"There are, but they didn't want to meet with you and I can't make them. Maybe you could--if it's not too much, maybe you could kind of contrive to run into them? Sorry to be sneaky, but I can't figure out a better way, and I'm worried about at least one of them."

 

"Yeah, there's one that feels a bit jumpy. I'll listen for them. I can just walk around?"

 

"The freedom of the city is yours," he says grandly, and that makes her smile and hug him again. "I usually eat dinner with everybody who lives in the compound, the ex-troopers and the staff, but we can sit in my room after and talk more."

 

He doesn't see her again until dinner, but he feels her presence, and not just on his own behalf: the whole compound's more at ease with her there. It makes him wonder what he's projecting and how that might be affecting everyone else, so when they're together in his room he asks if she can teach him some techniques for shielding. They sit facing one another and she walks him through it, creating a kind of wall of air around himself, or at least that's how it feels. Just trying it calms him. "Good," she says finally. "I'm not getting those spiky feelings from you anymore. But I bet you're still having them, right? Can I help you sleep?"

 

"Spiky?"

 

She shrugs, and even in that tiny motion every muscle of her body moves in harmony. "Whatever."

 

"It would be great if you could help me sleep, Rey, thank you."

 

He lies down on his side and she sits behind him, her hand lightly on the back of his neck. She says, "I can lie down too, if you want, like we used to."

 

"I set up a room for you down the hall."

 

"It's up to you."

 

"I want you to stay," he says. The sky through the slit of window is black and stabbed with stars. She fits herself against his back.

 

The comm's shrill alert sound wakes him, and he eases out from under Rey's arm to answer it.

 

JESSIKA PAVA TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: URGENT

STATUS: OPEN

 

_Writing to tell you that 1) your man is okay but 2) a couple of assholes he was trying to spy on shot him, because he's a dumbass, so 3) he's holed up in my family's house until he's well enough for us to get him offplanet. He explissetly (that doesn't look right) told me to tell you he's fine. My Ah Ma's in glory, she loves fussing over him and pouring herbal tintures (that doesn't look right either) into him and telling him he's the handsomest man she's seen since my Ah Gong was young. He says he'll comm you from where he's going next but doesn't want to say where on an open channel, obviously. He says the sypher will be the same as last time. I don't know the sypher for what but he says you'll know. If you guys are doing anything exiting can you please let me in on it? I'm bored as fuck. We have him off the painkillers now but he kept saying your name and calling you sweetheart when he was high. Thought you'd like to know. Watch your ass, okay?_

 

Rey is awake--probably the spike in his heart rate woke her--and looking at him. He beckons her over and gestures at the screen. She reads, then wraps him tightly in her arms again. "She says he's okay."

 

"She can't spell," Finn says miserably. "And she shouldn't have sent even that over an open channel. Everybody's getting careless." He knows he's being irrational; for most of their time together Poe risked his life daily, hourly, freely. But now he doesn't _have_ to.

 

Rey gives him a last squeeze. "I'm gonna go listen for those other two people you mentioned. Go splash your face and change your clothes. You have things to do. He's fine and he _will_ be fine. Probably," she adds, because some things you don't get over.

[UNSENT DRAFT]

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: URGENT

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_I got Jess's comm. I'm so fucking angry at you. Come here now, come and stay, come be close to me. Or don't, do whatever you want, just don't do stupid shit. We don't need to do that anymore, Poe, please. It was the right thing to do then, it was necessary, but we don't need to keep doing it forever._

[UNSENT DRAFT]

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: URGENT

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

 

[UNSENT DRAFT]

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: URGENT

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_You asshole, I would kill you myself except that would probably make you happy._

POE DAMERON TO FINN

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_The first thing you need to know is that I'm fine, completely fine. Didn't need a bacta tank, barely even needed a cast. The second thing you need to know is that I love you. The third thing you need to know is that while I was lying in Pava's family's house healing up, all I could think about was your dick in my ass. When I see you, I want you to bend me over and bite the back of my neck and fuck me until neither of us can see straight. And the fourth thing you need to know is that I'm at coordinates 6009 by 440 by 35, and you can comm me here for the next ten standard days or so, less by the time you get this. After that I'm on my way to Hutt Space for the General and after that if all goes well I'll come straight to you, if you still want me to. I miss you. I love you._

Finn thinks very seriously about pulling a Kylo Ren and smashing the comm bank into a smoking ruin. If he had a lightsaber he might do it, but he only has his fists, so he breathes deeply and evenly for a few minutes and heads for the staff meeting he was on his way to when the comm came through.

 

Through his round of tasks, through a stint in the training room to blow off steam, through dinner, through the time after dinner when most of the people in the compound peel off to watch holos or meditate or prepare for their night shifts at the canneries or the creches, he concentrates on the gathering soreness in his back and legs, checks the delivery schedules and the time of his own mindhealing meeting tomorrow--he started going mostly to model it for everybody else, but he recognizes now that he needs it--and practices shielding the way Rey taught him. But back in his room eventually he gives in, reads Poe's message again, and starts stroking himself. His hand tightens and speeds up as he imagines fucking Poe hard and fast and mean, like he says he wants, more than he says he wants, little moans like sobs shaken out of him as he takes it and takes it.

 

Finn comes hard and blindingly, panting, and rolls over, and cries into the pillow.

 

FINN TO ROEL CONTROL TOWER

CATEGORY: OPERATIONS

PRIORITY: URGENT

STATUS: PLANETARY OPEN

 

_Please have the controller on duty notify me when Poe Dameron requests permission to land._

 

The craft that lands on the roofdeck is nondescript and beat-up, probably whatever Poe took into Hutt Space, the asshole. It lands with a kind of creaky bounce and settle, the port hisses down, and Poe's standing there looking raggedy and exhausted and beautiful. He casts his glance around and sees Finn, walks toward him if he's not sure of his welcome.

 

All of Finn's vengeful plans vanish down the garbage chute, and he knew they would, really. He folds Poe into his arms and opens his mouth against Poe's neck and what emerges is, "Every _day,_ Poe, every minute of every damn day."

 

"Me too," Poe says, kissing the side of his head, his temple. Finn waits for the _I'm sorry_ that he half-expects, but the other half of him already knows it isn't coming, and after all, this was the plan, this time apart, it was just that there were so many things that weren't in the plan--Poe's kissing his mouth now, and he opens to it, feeling the sky all around him.

 

He disengages much too soon and leads Poe into the hydraulic lift, BB-8 trundling after them and chortling in a pleased, quiet way. "Everyone who lives here knows you're here, so you can go anywhere in the compound without getting challenged," he says as they enter the main floor. "They might be a little curious about you, though. Kitchens over here, freshers down that way and to the left. My room's one floor up, second door on the right as you leave the lift, if you want to rest."

 

"Rest?" Poe's eyebrows gesture a mixture of surprise and invitation.

 

"I, uh, have a bunch more to do today. I'm free after dinner."

 

"Oh," Poe says, with an intonation Finn can't analyze. "Well. Okay. Good. I think I'd like some food, yeah, and to get clean, but can I come around with you after that? See what you do?"

 

"Sure. I think so." He mentally runs over his schedule. You probably shouldn't come to the three-on-one meetings, but other than that there's nothing you can't be at."

 

"What's a three-on-one meeting? Sounds fun."

 

Finn sighs. "I meet with three ex-troopers at a time, to check in, because in the Order if you had to meet one-on-one with someone higher up in the power structure you were in deep shit. Three of them to one of me helps them keep calm. Sometimes it actually is fun, some of them are pretty funny, but it's not fun like that. Those are between six and eight bells--you'll hear the bells, that's how they keep time here--so I'll have to leave you then, but everything else you can come to. I'm glad you want to." He puts his arm around Poe's waist to draw him briefly close. "Go ahead, eat food, get clean. I'll be in that room--" he points--"for the next standard hour or so, reading some reports from one of the sister compounds, and then we're meeting with a couple people from there to trade strategies and troubleshooting, same room, so that's where you can find me for a while."

 

Poe rejoins him while his head's still bent over the reports, reaches out and rubs the back of Finn's neck like he used to back on D'Qar, late nights, when there was too much intel to sort through, not enough time to figure out the next thing that might help to keep them alive. Finn leans into the touch and feels it lingering throughout the meeting, through the next meeting (with the guild forewomen, finally), through the three-on-ones where he needs all his focus, to laugh ruefully with Ottilie and Sixty about taking the piss out of townie harassers while Ala, who almost never speaks, sits quietly but with less strain than last time. He's constantly aware of Poe in his periphery, even when they're not in the same room, though whether it's Force-awareness or just gratitude he can't tell. When Poe sends BB-8 to the dining hall to tell him he's decided in favor of that rest after all and he'll see Finn in his room, Finn feels a stab of near-fury at the delay.

 

"There's a charging station down at the end of the hall, B," Finn tells the little droid when he's done eating. "See you tomorrow morning?" BB-8 whistles a surprisingly gracious affirmative and rolls away. Finn's surprised by how hard his heart's beating as he opens his own door.

 

Poe's on top of the blankets, shirtless and boots kicked off, half-curled in sleep. Finn's fury and tenderness and lust all intensify. He doesn't know if he should let Poe sleep. Doesn't know how long they have together this time. Doesn't know what to do next, what he even wants to do next. He takes his own boots off, and though he's trying to be silent, Poe stirs and looks at him, says drowsily, "C'mere."

 

"You're not too tired?"

 

"It's been _six months."_ Finn lies down. "Every minute of every damn day, like you said, for six months," Poe says, clearly awake now. "You better kiss me like you mean it."

 

Finn slides closer, takes him by the chin and kisses him hard and searchingly, demandingly, even though that's only part of what he means. He rolls on top of Poe and pins him, keeps kissing him, switching between his mouth and his throat, between kisses and bites. Every muscle says _Stay here. You have to stay. Stay here with me._ He has to lever himself up a little to get his own shirt off, and Poe's hardening cock lies flush with his own through their two layers of clothes, sending a shiver of heat through him. Poe arches up into him and grins his wild grin, the one he gets when he's flying them into something dangerous.

 

This usually drives Finn wild, but today he just can't bear it, and to his horror he feels his hard-on easing off, his feelings churning into a state he doesn't fully understand. He rolls away again, onto his back, and stares up at the ceiling.

 

"Hey, what is it?" Poe moves close to him again, traces his hairline with a fingertip. "What do you need? We don't have to do it like that, we don't have to do it any way at all if you don't want." He's frowning. "Do you _not_ want to? Anymore? Is that what--"

 

"Why do you keep doing stupid shit?" Finn blurts out. "Why do you keep running missions for the General, why did you go to Hutt Space, for shit's sake, why do you keep getting _shot at?"_

 

"Hey, wait, now. I always get shot at. When we _met_ I was getting shot at--well, right after. If that's a dealbreaker for fucking me you're gonna need to figure out how to go back in time."

 

"But you don't need to now." Finn wishes he could yell, but his voice is shaking too much. "I'm not talking about the past, I'm talking about the future. There's no reason to take crazy risks. Nobody needs you to do that anymore."

 

Poe sighs and throws an arm over his face. "That's the problem," he says, or Finn thinks he says.  


"How is that a problem!"  


"It's a problem because the thing that nobody needs me to do is the thing I got very very good at. I had a duty, a responsibility, to people and to a--state of being, I guess, a condition of being--and it was important. I was good at pretty much everything that helped me carry it out, and frankly carrying it out got me put through a lot of shit, and now no one needs me to carry it out, and I don't know what else I can use those things for." He takes a long breath, lets it out slowly. "I love my family," he says. "I love you. I love BB-8, and I love Rey because you do, and I love the General. But none of you need me to fight for you right now, and I don't love anything else, and I don't owe anything to anyone else, and I'm not sure I can even _do_ anything else. There's nothing for me to move towards except you. And that's a hell of a burden on you, to make you into my obligation, especially if I'm gonna be bored. And boring. And useless."

 

"You love freedom," Finn points out, even though it sounds a little corny. "That's--I mean, that's what the Resistance...right? That's the condition of being you're talking about?"

 

"I love _your_ freedom," Poe says. "I don't know what to do with mine."

 

"I'm stupid," Finn says after this sinks in. "You were telling me this, weren't you? In the messages? In between the...other stuff. I'm sorry, and I really am stupid, because not only were you telling me, everybody else here is dealing with the exact same shit. Like every third conversation I have with anybody is about that, about who to be now, and how."

 

"And that's another thing," Poe says. "Watching you today was amazing. The way you keep everything in your head, the way you talk to everybody, listen to everybody, keep it all going--you were made to do this. It's beautiful to see. But I guess I'm jealous."

 

Finn clenches his fists. _Shield,_ he reminds himself, _don't make the whole compound feel it, they have enough problems._ He says as slowly and gently as he can, "I wasn't made to do this. I was made to turn other people into what I was, or kill them. I _became_ this, and I'm still becoming it, and it doesn't come easy, and I fuck up a lot. I don't even know if I want to keep doing it. But I am glad I'm doing it right now, that's true, and I get it if that's hard for you to be around."

 

"All I want is to be around you. I just don't want that to be the _only_ thing I want. Finn. Hey. Look at me." Finn turns his head to the side. Poe's face, so familiar and so beloved, is earnest now with the line between his eyebrows that Finn always wants to kiss, new lines around his mouth, a little more gray at his temples and strung through his curls. "This is not about you. I'm sorry I tried to make it about you just now. I love you completely. Okay?"

 

"I know," Finn says. "But that means that anything that's about you is sort of about me, too. I get that I can't--figure this out for you. I wish I could, but all I can do is keep doing what I'm doing. Which includes loving you, by the way, in case you were wondering."

 

"I wasn't," Poe says, and kisses him softly. "Let's go to sleep. Do you, um, mind if I jack off while I lie next to you? I'm pretty worked up and it'll help me wind down. But I can do it in the fresher if it's annoying."

 

They've both done this in the past, always asking first, when the other one was too tired or just not feeling like it; it's never been a big deal, but now it makes Finn feel like he let Poe down. He knows that's incredibly stupid, he'd tell anyone else it was stupid, but he can't help it. "Go for it," he says. "Can I kiss you, though, while--"

 

"That would make it a hundred percent better. Two hundred." Finn leans up on an elbow, leans over, kisses Poe's forehead and eyes and lips while Poe rearranges himself to get a good angle. Finn still feels slightly remote, this was maybe not the best idea, but Poe's mouth is as sweet and clever and attentive as always, and he smells like himself, and all of that is home if anything is. Poe's clearly going for efficiency: he comes quickly and with a soft sigh. Finn gets the day's undershirt from the floor and wipes him off, feeling tender again, and Poe pulls him back down. "Let's go to sleep," he says again. "I can't believe I get to sleep in the same bed with you."

 

"Believe it," Finn says, and he is ready for sleep, in spite of everything. He nestles his head on Poe's shoulder, even though he knows they'll change positions during the night, when Poe starts to lose circulation.

 

Waking up together feels good and warm and right, even after Finn's memory of where and when they are sinks in. He feels like that's a good sign. Most of the ex-Resistance people are at breakfast, and they shout with delight when they see Poe's there, pummeling him and calling him rude names. He gives as good as he gets, while Finn greets Spoons and Sixty with a couple of requests for the day and keeps half an eye on Tenten to see if she's actually eating.

 

He has to go down into town to help divide up a shipment of medical supplies between the compound and the town's clinic, so Poe comes along and charms everyone: the customs rep, the nervously dignified trainee doctors and the midwife with the duracrete jaw, the two kids skipping school to play wall-ball and the ex-trooper who's there to get her prosthesis adjusted. He's at his liveliest and warmest, and it ripples out around him: everyone he speaks with seems a little more at ease, a little lifted up. When he takes a turn at wall-ball and flubs a bounce, he laughs as hard as the kids do, and to Finn's ear it sounds real.

 

"Being nice to people isn't a purpose in life," Poe says when Finn mentions it later. "It's not a job."

 

"Those are two different things. And anyway you weren't just being nice. You were making it easier for everyone to do what they were doing. What they had to do. You made it _pleasant._ That's useful." Poe looks stubborn, and Finn says quickly, "We can stop talking about it. Is it bad for me to make suggestions? I won't make suggestions."

 

"Maybe don't," Poe agrees, and Finn feels terrible. The day wears on: meetings, a tense conversation with two ex-troopers where it's not totally clear what the problem is, more meetings, food somewhere in there, a round of three-on-ones during which Poe goes to have a smoke and a catch-up with the ex-Resistance people, more food that Finn is too mad at himself to eat. A few people are watching and grinning as BB-8 projects images of Finn from back at the Resistance base. Poe is across the dining hall chatting with Xiomara, whose hand arches over the barely-visible-yet rise of her belly; she looks shy and content and proud.

 

It should be nice, it is nice, but Finn puts down the spoon he isn't using, catches Poe's eye and makes their old signal for _Need a minute alone,_ a thumb-gesture near the temple. It isn't stormtrooper handsign; _alone_ in the Order was either unthinkable or synonymous with _isolation,_ a nightmare.

 

He goes to the roofdeck and leans against the hull of the heap Poe flew here. The wind is soft. The sky's overcast, so the main lights are coming out and up, not down: cool phosphorescence from windows scattered across the mountainsides, a dimmer, warmer ambience from downtown. The sharper winds don't come off the peaks until around dawn. He thinks about having a purpose, and making a home, and being a self, and how tiring it all is, sometimes. He stays away from the edge of the deck.

 

When he gets back to his room, Poe isn't there, so he takes out his datapad and starts going over the questions for his nex meeting with the headwoman, even though that's not for two days. He hears the door, doesn't turn, lets Poe come in and press up behind him and kiss the top of his head. Leans back into him, despite the back of the chair getting in the way. Poe says, "I have an offer to make, but it's just an offer."

 

"Okay?"

 

"Everybody wants a piece of you here, huh? I saw it today and yesterday. Everybody's got a demand, and I was like that too, last night. So my offer is for you to just lie back and let me do everything. If you think you'd like that. Wanna think about it for a minute?"

 

Finn thinks about it, but he doesn't need a minute. "Yes," he says, "I mean yes, I want to," and doesn't miss the relief in Poe's voice: "Oh, good. Come over to the bed with me, then."

 

Poe steers Finn to the side of the bed, sits him down, kneels and unlaces Finn's boots and takes them off, rubs his face along Finn's thigh. He says, "You take care of everybody here, and I'm gonna take care of you. This is just for now, this isn't the new world order, okay? Don't worry about...dynamics. You'll have plenty of time to give it back to me later, if you want. Lift your hips up." Finn does, and Poe slides his pants off, leaving him in his drawers and a shirt that Poe slides his hands under, up and off.

 

Poe kisses and mouths Finn's dick through the cloth, light and excruciating, and says, "Lie back for me." He gets on the bed and kisses across Finn's chest, bites his nipples lightly at first, then hard, palming Finn's cock at the same time, not moving his hand yet, just resting there, so that Finn finds himself half-hard and straining up against him, eager for friction. "Not yet," Poe says between kisses, and that's when Finn realizes what he's actually gotten into. A luxurious thrill travels from the root of his groin to the crown of his head. Poe seems to pick up on it: he looks down at Finn and smiles.

 

"My beautiful man," he says, "my hero, my love. You still okay with this?"

 

"So far."

 

"Good, 'cause we're just getting started." Poe kisses the insides of Finn's elbows, his kneecaps, the arch of his foot, returning to the center of his body every so often to squeeze or lick or caress, till Finn feels like his whole self is one yearning, humming nerve. When Poe slides his drawers down and takes him in his mouth, the sound he makes surprises him.

 

Poe's mouth is wet and deft, warm and precise. When Finn's just on the brink of coming, Poe lifts his head, and says, "You liking this?"

 

"Y-yeah."

 

"Good." Back down again, deeper this time, till Poe lets himself choke just a little and pulls off _again._ Finn gasps and glares at him. "You're a shit."

 

"Mmm," Poe says, because his mouth is full of Finn's cock again and moving faster, it must be bruising the back of Poe's throat, and every ounce of sensation in Finn's body is concentrated there. Surely Poe will finish it now, but just when Finn feels himself start to throb, Poe pulls away a third time, spit shining on his chin and in the corners of his smile. Finn groans, "Poe, please," and the smile intensifies.

 

"Why don't you turn over for me," Poe says, and Finn's memory flashes to the message Poe sent, months ago now. When he's lying on his front, hard-on aching against the mattress, he can tell that Poe really is just kneeling there and gazing at him. Finn says, "Come on," and Poe _laughs_ and says, "So greedy, gimme a minute to enjoy the view here," so he knows that Poe remembers too, and then he doesn't know anything much, except the feeling of Poe's tongue pressing up against his hole, delicate at first, then sloppy and eager and insistent, and he's making sounds that aren't words. He doesn't even realize that he's trying to simultaneously get more of Poe's tongue into him and rub off against the mattress until he feels Poe's grip on his ass tighten, pressing him still.

 

That little edge of pain is almost too much, and once again he realizes that Poe is paying laser-pinpoint attention to his every response, because Poe eases off and kisses the base of his spine and says, "Tell me what you want."

 

"Thought you were in charge here," Finn says into the pillow.

 

"Okay, if you can still sass me, I obviously need to step it up." Then he feels a finger, two, sliding into him, three, pressing and twisting, _pulling_ sensation out of him but stopping _again_ when his thighs start to tremble. Starting again, stopping again. It's too much. Through the blood pounding in his head he hears Poe say again, "Tell me what you want."

 

"I want you to fuck me. Please, Poe, I need it, I want it all, I--"

 

"Good," Poe says, doing one more thing with his hand that makes Finn actually bite the pillow. "Let me hear you say it again. Say what you want."

 

"Fuck me, _please."_ When Poe pushes into him Finn's mind goes blank and he opens entirely, limbs loose and helpless, words gone, while Poe whispers to him, "That's it, just feel me in you, let me give you what you want, that's right, that's beautiful. You're so beautiful, fucking you feels so good. You wanna come now? While I'm inside you? Is that what you want? Tap your hand if you can't talk. You wanna come for me?"

 

Somehow, Finn manages to get all the necessary muscle and nerve impulses together to tap his hand on the mattress.

 

"Go ahead, then," Poe says, thrusting again for punctuation, "touch your cock," but Finn doesn't think he can coordinate himself to that extent and shakes his head. "Okay," Poe says, and Finn moans as he pulls out, "let's turn over," and they do, and Poe moves into him again, propping himself up with one hand, Finn thinks, and spitting on the other hand, stroking Finn in time with his thrusts, "Come for me, let's see you," and Finn comes apart.

 

When he starts to reassemble, Poe's lying beside him and kissing the side of his neck, saying, "So hot, so good for me," and Finn starts to cry. Poe thumbs his tears away. "Let me hold you," he says, "lie here in my arms. We're in the right place, this is exactly where we should be," which makes Finn cry more, burying his face in Poe's shoulder.

 

The wake of it, crying and afterglow, sinks after a few minutes to a kind of low, slow burn in Finn's chest, enough for him to say, "I still have to get up tomorrow and go back to the demands."

 

"I know," Poe says. "And I still have to figure out what I'm gonna do. We already knew that this doesn't make anything else go away, it just makes it possible. It makes it better. You make everything better, for me."

 

"Where will you go next?"

 

"I might go by the Temple, actually. Talk to Rey. I feel like she's smart about these kinds of things."

 

"She is," Finn says, thinking of her visit. _Because an enemy makes things easy._ "Yeah, talk to her, she's good to talk to."

 

"After that I don't know. But will you meet me on Yavin 4 when your year is up? It's in the ass-end of beyond, it's not on the way to anywhere, but I want you to meet everybody. Kes basically told me I shouldn't bother coming back without you."

 

That makes Finn smile, though it'd be tough for him to analyze why. "I'll meet you there."

 

FINN TO POE DAMERON

CATEGORY: PERSONAL

PRIORITY: STANDARD

STATUS: ENCRYPTED

 

_In ten days I'll be on my way to you, so I won't bother sending a code word with this. Everything's pretty well ready to hand off here, so of course I'll think of something I forgot while we're in hyperspace. I did promise to check in regularly and to come in, if I can, in another eight of their months to see how things are going. Spoons and Sixty are going to do fine. I think. It seems like it's important to have ex-troopers coordinating here. It helps to not have to explain things, to kind of start from the same place._

_Xiomara asked me to say hello to you, and Ala asked me to say hello to BB-8, which I think is the first time she's asked me directly for anything. I'll miss them, but walking away from here will feel good--you know I haven't been offplanet since I came here? I wrote to the League office that deals with veterans' affairs, which includes us, and told them they needed to take a look at their leave policy._

_I look forward to hearing what you and Rey talked about, since apparently it's too important to tell me unless it's in person. I look forward to meeting Kes and everyone, and seeing where you grew up. I look forward to laying you out and holding you down and fucking your mouth in that forest clearing you told me about. I look forward to everything, really, even the bad parts--well, not the bad parts themselves, but they will happen so I'm glad they'll happen with you. I miss you. I love you._

 

 

 

 


End file.
